Edgar Allan Poe and the era of Murders in the Rue Morgue

Art Representing Life in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

Art often represents life; nothing inspires the imagination like reality. No other writer knew this more than Edgar Allan Poe, whose literature spans the gamut of love poetry to gruesome tales of horror. While Poe is recognized mainly for his contribution to the horror genre, it should be forgotten that he also made a significant contribution to the detective genre as well. His short story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," represents a new way to tell a story, a new way to shed light on the human condition, and a new way to deliver a gruesome story with grisly details. The mystery story falls into circulation at a time when society is experiencing growing pains. Urban development opened the door for new crime waves and Poe possessed the mental agility to capture the nuance of this era in fiction. Taking his horror stories one step further by deepening the reader experience and response, Poe inspired the detective for decades to come. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" emphasizes the talent of Poe and highlights the fact that the best art springs forth from life itself.

The era in which Poe lived was one of change. Times were volatile and so were temperaments. Lawrence Frank maintains that one of the most interesting aspects of the story is the fact that is first appeared in 1841 at a time when "both a resurgent evangelicalism and a conservative Natural Theology were confronted by a positivist science" (Frank 169). The story depicts a "culture in which disagreement and discord are everywhere" (170), according to Frank. In addition, the witnesses' inability to distinguish the voices in the apartment at the time of the murders point to "debates of the 1830s and 1840s about the origin and meaning of the universe" (170). This disarray is seen in the monstrosity of the murders and the disorder of the of Mademoiselle L'Espanaye's apartment. We read that furniture was "broken and thrown about in all directions" (Poe 63) and the bed was thrown into the middle of the floor. The daughter was stuffed in the chimney, "head downward" (63) with such force that her body had been "thrust up and disengaged" (63). The mother's body was found outside with her "throat so entirely cut that, upon an attempt to raise her, the head fell off" (63). These scenes are amazing for two reasons. The first reason is that Poe is credited for putting such mysterious heinous crimes in a detective story, therefore creating a new literary genre. The second is we can still see the same type of format produced today on such shows and Law and Order, Monk, and CSI. Poe did not just write a story, he pieced together elements that shocked and interested his society at the same time.

Art reflects life in historical and personal ways. Poe moves from the "timeless dreamlike worlds of remote gothic mansion, turrets, and dungeons to the social realm of neighborhoods, shops, newspapers, and political intrigue, where the investigation of seemingly isolated crimes against women uncovers a network of covert gender-related crimes that pervades the entire social order" (Jordon 12). Poe composed this story at a time when crime was of great interest as a result from urban growth. This is especially true in London, where the story takes place. Frank writes that London's society was filled with "men and women of different nationalities and languages" (170) and he likens Paris to a "nineteenth-century Babel" (170). The story can suggest the "individual within a Parisian Babel of controversy, anticipating its own outre way the possible ascendancy of one evolutionary vision of the universe" (187). Dupin becomes the "individual as the creature of history" (187) and the orangutan represents the "terror of a history secularized and devoid of design" (187). This pot was to usher in a new genre of plots that looked at the universe in a new way. The detective story, as a result, "responds to a new era of world history" (187). The crimes against the women can also be seen as symbols from Poe's own past as he lived through the deaths of the women he loved the most. Tragedy, of course, must make its way into Poe's fiction but the grisly murders of thee two women could easily be representations of the death of Poe's mother and cousin.

Society was all the inspiration Poe needed. Terrance Whalen maintains that Poe's tales "arose from within the specific conditions of capitalist development which were then emerging in antebellum America" (Whalen 386). Poe's circumstances allowed him to write directly from his experiences with urban life, Whalen claims. This urban life was in an upheaval as "industrialization paralleled the rise of information as a dominant form of meaning" (389). "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" attempts to outwit the crisis of overproduction in the literary market by imagining the reverse situation -- a social crisis caused by a scarcity of information" (410). This technique is perfectly presented in the story. The narrator gives us most of the information we need to have the tale make sense. However, significant details are purposefully left out to make the reader conjure up some sort of explanation. The readers attempt to solve the mystery before the detective does. Poe's society was one of change. Society was changing, growing, and information was becoming more available with newspapers, books, and magazines.